Acoustics placement advice (layout enclosed)

curtiswyant · Post by **curtiswyant** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 1:31 am

Here's a layout of my room. The black blocks are doors or windows. The red blocks are gobos/bass traps. I can't decide if I want to permanently treat the entire room, which is used for recording and mixing, or to use portable gobos and have a different setup for recording and mixing. I won't be able to put traps in the corners with the doors, which sucks. Any advice on bass trap layout? And could I use 4" foam for the "rear wall" of my mixing desk? Thanks for any help.

kentothink · Post by **kentothink** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 1:33 am

what are some dimensions of the room?

curtiswyant · Post by **curtiswyant** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 2:12 am

The longest side wall is 17'. The desk is 6'. The ceilings are 8'. I think the width is 13'.

knightfly · Post by **knightfly** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 5:24 am

This is what I would do with your space - reasons for most changes are on the mark-up of your drawing... Steve

curtiswyant · Post by **curtiswyant** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 1:15 am

Thanks for the advice! However, over the drum area, there is a high "A" ceiling with a lot of open air. I doubt that I would be able to hang anything above that area. Would the open space be beneficial or do I still need to do some absorbing on top of the drums?

Ethan Winer · Post by **Ethan Winer** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 1:26 am

Curtis,

Steve has you covered, but I'll add this:

> over the drum area, there is a high "A" ceiling with a lot of open air <

In that case it's even more important to place absorption from the ceiling, to avoid the focusing effect that occurs under the peak. I have that type of ceiling in my home studio and also in my home theater, and in both rooms I put absorber panels suspended under the center of the peak.

--Ethan

curtiswyant · Post by **curtiswyant** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 1:50 am

How important are the gobos in front of the drums?

knightfly · Post by **knightfly** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 5:34 am

They will help kill a lot of reflections from that area while mixing, especially due to the glass; in fact, you may want 1 or 2 more so you can overlap them slightly. When recording the drums, the soft sides should usually be toward the drums to kill reflections getting into the drum mics; then, for mixing you would turn them around.

While mixing, you may also find that you need to lay pillows on all the drum heads and lay a blanket over the entire kit (cymbal damping) in addition to the gobos... Steve